In Which Ennio La Sarza Has A Very Bad Day At Work

The Garson Nickel Mine, circa 1920

Accounts of UFO encounters can be--considering the subject matter--surprisingly dull.  However, the following tale, recorded in the famed pages of “U.S. Project Blue Book” was colorful enough to catch my attention.  It was recorded by a Buffalo, New York minister named Charles Beck who had a side career as a UFO researcher.

The story was related to Beck by a 23-year-old native of Italy, Ennio La Sarza.  In 1954, he was working at a nickel mining company in Garson, Canada.  At about 5 p.m. on July 2, La Sarza was alone, busy with a painting job on the mine premises, when he was startled by the sight of an object coming down from the sky with “several times the speed of a jet plane.”  Just before it would have crashed into the earth, the object slowed down and hovered just above the ground.  La Sarza noticed that the grass beneath the strange craft was now scorched.  The object was spherical in shape, about 25 feet in diameter, and had a ring of what looked like portholes around it.  It had what appeared to be landing gear on the bottom and something resembling an antenna on top.

After a moment, three very bizarre beings came out of the craft.  They were about 13 feet tall and blue-green in color.  They seemed to glow.  The creatures all had one eye in the center of their foreheads, six sets of hairy appendages with crablike claws at the ends, and twin antenna sprouting from their heads.

In short, these beings were not your average extraterrestrials.

When one of the beings started to approach La Sarza, he did the only sensible thing: namely, begin to run like hell.  However, the being fixed the young man with a hypnotic stare that paralyzed him.  La Sarza then heard a voice inside his head which demanded that he do…something.  The horror of what was happening to him caused him to faint.  When he came to, the craft and its sinister occupants were gone.

We will--possibly fortunately--never know what the being wanted La Sarza to do, as he refused to divulge it to his later interviewers.  He said only that he would “rather die” than comply with the creature’s wishes.  In fact, La Sarza remained so terrified of what “they” had told him to do, that he later asked authorities to jail him, for his own safety.  (It was pointed out to him that, considering the capabilities these creatures seemed to have, imprisonment probably would not help.)

Beck and others who later interviewed La Sarza (including several psychiatrists) said he appeared completely sane.  He was described as a “model citizen with a good record,” who gained nothing from the often unflattering publicity his story attracted.  La Sarza told Beck that he was aware of how “crazy” his tale sounded, but he could not retract any of it.

I have only one thing to add:  I’ll probably go to my grave wondering what in hell that alien ordered him to do.